Technical Summary

Frontend Design & Coding

I worked with many web projects since 2001. I have knowledge and experience on every detail of web projects: from how to make web applications visually appealing for users, to how to market the web site in every stage.

I started my first iPhone related project in November 2007, currently I have done several iPhone web apps and native apps.

• CSS/XHTML web page design
• JavaScript
• iPhone web application design
• Illustration design, hand drawing or vector
• iPhone application design and Objective-C coding

Backend Coding & Systems

My earliest experience with Linux started in 1998 at my age of 13, I enjoy the feeling when after hours of hard work in hosting room, dozens different network devices got up and running. And I know how to make them working in a reliable and sustainable manner.

• PHP
• ColdFusion
• Java
• Python
• Perl
• MySQL
• SQLite
• Openfire
• Apache HTTPD
• Apache James
• Unix server administration: add/remove/build software, firewall, mail server, kernel configuration

Work Experience

SHINRA-CORE – Founder – 07/2008 to 02/2009

SHINRA-CORE is the name of my own studio. I can offer:

• iPhone application design, development
• Desktop application UI design
• Web site design
• Web application development at small or big scale
• Custom WordPress theme design
• Consultancy on user experience design, user interaction design, performance tuning

Some of my clients:

• Douban – iPhone Web App and Native App
• iJour – iPhone eBook Reader

6.cn – CEO Assistant, Mac Team Leader, Project Manager – 05/2007 to 07/2008 (Beijing, China)

6.cn aka 6rooms, is video sharing site started in Mar 2006 by a team of veterans from Sina, Ceyuan Ventures and Goldman Sachs, it’s growing very fast and now it’s one of the largest video sharing sites in Asia according to Alexa Traffic Rank and various other sources. I was hired by CEO Mr. LIU Yan in May 2007 as his assistant, after I delivered a training on User Experience Design to 6rooms tech team.

• Help defining strategies in product and marketing
• Worked with Apple Inc. to launch the iPhone edition of 6.cn
• Coordinated the site-wide redesign project with a team consists 3 backend engineers and 2 designers
• Recruiting top designers and coders
• Providing in-house training on user experience
• Launched footbig.com, a photo sharing site
• Awarded as the “Indispensable Professional of 2007″ in 6rooms annual party

eBay – Software Engineer – 09/2005 to 04/2007 (Shanghai, China)

eBay started a new venture in the beginning of 2005, they launched Kijiji internationally in March 2005, and I was hired by the head of Kijiji China — Mr. WANG Jian Shuo, as the first software engineer for Kijiji China.

• Writing fundamental frameworks for other team members
• During the US-to-China migration of Kijiji China, worked with eBay China Operation Center to configure and tune a hosting room with 40+ network equipments including web servers, database servers, load balancers, UPS, writing scripts to automate various tasks including install/remove, monitor, performance optimizations
• Providing in-house training on PHP, JavaScript, Linux System Administration, Design, User Experience, Search Engine Optimizations
• Implemented a complete BBS for Kijiji China, from designing, coding to deploying
• Awarded as “Best Trainer of 2006 Q3″ and “Most Helpful of 2006 Q3″

Education

I dropped out of high school at my age of 17, for various reasons. One major reason is that I already knew what I love to do when I was 15, once I made a list of things I’m going to do, the list contains every amazing things I can do with computers. So I dropped out just for more time I can have to explore the world.

University may be a great place, however, I didn’t feel excited about it when I was 17, so it’s just an arrangement of my time.

My high school days were spent in two high schools, both are the best in the city of Kunming. I entered No.3 Middle High School of Kunming with the 2nd highest score of entrance examination, after one year, I chose to transfer to Middle High School of Yunnan Normal University, just for some fresh new air. Because of the highest score, the transfer was a breeze.

I started an online community site after I entered the new high school, I can still remember it was launched on September 14th, 2001. It was a collection of code written in Perl, whole site is a bit like today’s SNS, having many functions even some nonsense ones like you can virtually marry someone. Its name was ePeta, e for electronic just like e for eBay, and Peta is 10¹⁵, yes it seems that all geeks have a crush on big numbers. All my schoolmates around registered, and all topics they were discussing, they even use the site for organizing calendar of student union and club activities. I still remember we had a very professional D&D club and several Starcraft teams.

Soon the site gained attentions from teachers. In Year 2001, most Chinese school teachers tend to be very serious, I guess they learned that from CCTV, and they assume we students share a same view of the world with them, however, soon they found we’re talking about everything in ePeta, from what to do in weekends, to something they don’t like to see, like stories making fun of teachers, playing hooky and sex.

They had several talks with me, they asked me and others to implement more strict moderation because there are too many “bad things”, then I argued, “it’s just like the world, it’s complete with bad and good things, you just can’t pretend that there are only good things. It’s everyone’s own responsibility to determine bad or good, for himself but not others”, and I became the bad boy can’t be saved in their views.

Several friends of mine, ones who were working together as administrators of ePeta, thought it’s too “dangerous” to continue working with me, so they turned hostile to me.

In the beginning of 2002, all those conflicts just get worse, because of some pornographic contents posted by members, and I didn’t care to delete because I thought it’s nothing, the school intimidated me into closing the site. The result is that I set a hidden flag on those contents, and the whole site got a face shift, its color scheme is turned to dark from bright orange.

During dark January 2002, I read a book titled Les Confessions written by Jean Jacques Rousseau, and I felt how distant it is between me and the old people in school. They believe in censorship, mind control, abstinency and repeating. And my conclusion of many things is “so what”.

ePeta was a quite memorable thing in many of my schoolmates, even in many ones of teenagers in city of Kunming. Conflicts, sentimental memories, tears and smiles, girls and boys, love and hate. When it’s shut down in August, 2003, it had 13000 registered members and millions of posts.

It was a pure project. Just for fun and ideas, just like my teenage time. In today’s view, a sustainable web site should find an organic business model to make it go further, but the first time I heard of the word “business model” is after my age of 20. So, maybe I should say, let it be.

In March 2003, I was 17, three months after I dropped out, the high school asked me to contend in a national science innovation contest for the school, they told my parents that the grand prize would mean opportunities from 1st class universities like Tsinghua. I happened to work on a hobby project at that time, so, for making my parents happy I was in. My hobby project is about mobile Internet, I think it’s possible to extend device function via mobile Internet, even with simple presentation layer like WML 1.0, there are a lot things can be done at the backend.

So I implemented an online community site with Microsoft technologies like server side COM components and SQL Server 2000, and WML 1.0 as the frontend. I won the grand prize, and it means +10 points in university entrance examination. There are so many students competing for university entrance examination nation wide, +1 means I can beat at least 4000 competitors, so +10 is a lot. But I still decided not to go to university.

Revised on 10/07/2008 | Detailed Version for Print | Detailed PDF Version